Tariffs are available for inspection at the following location:
National Exchange Carrier Association, Inc.
115 Perimeter Center Place, Suite 440 Atlanta, GA 30346

Identity Theft

BBTEL takes great pride in protecting customers against identity theft. Through methods of authentication, Brandenburg Telephone Co. will strive to protect it's customers from being victims of identity theft.

Identity Theft Definition

Identity theft occurs when an unauthorized person wrongfully obtains and uses another person's personal information to commit fraud or deception, usually for economic gain.

There are two types of identity theft

"Account Takeover" occurs when an unauthorized person acquires existing credit account information and purchases products and services and charges the cost to the credit account. This type of fraud is typically discovered when the lawful owner of the account receives an account statement.

"Application Fraud" occurs when an unauthorized person uses SSN and other identifying information to open new accounts in the name associated with the identifying information. Victims are not likely to learn of application fraud for some time, because the monthly account statements are mailed to the address used by the imposter. In contrast, victims learn of account take over when they receive their monthly account statement.

Brandenburg Telephone Company will take practical steps to reduce the risk of both types of fraud.

Brandenburg Telephone Company is the recipient of Federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable , sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal or because all or part of an individual's income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audio tape, etc.) should contact USDA's TARGET center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination, write to USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Ave. S.W, Washington, DC 20250-9410, or call (800) 795-3272 (voice), or (202) 720-7382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

Brandenburg Communications is committed to making its electronic technologies accessible to individuals with disabilities.

Web Standards

This site was built using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and confirms to accepted Web standards laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). If anything on this website does not validate correctly or creates a problem for any user, please contact our office. We welcome your comments and try to provide widely accessible information for all visitors. The site will continually evolve based on industry best practices.

Adobe Acrobat PDF Files

Many of the documents on the website are in HTML or PHP formats. Those formats are generally accessible to people who use screen readers. PDF format is used to preserve the content and layout of our hard copy publications. People using screen-reading devices generally are unable to read documents directly in PDF format, unless they have an accessibility plug-in installed on their system along with Adobe Acrobat Reader. Any user requiring assistance with PDF files or any other aspects of our website is encouraged to contact our office. It is our desire to reduce or remove these PDF formatted documents from our website in future updates.

We Can Help

Some areas of the website may not be viewable. If you have any difficulty accessing content, have difficulty viewing a file on the website or notice any accessibility problems, contact our office. Brandenburg Communications will strive to provide the content you need in the format you require. We also welcome your questions about this accessibility statement.

Kentucky Relay

For everyone, including the thousands of people who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deaf-Blind or Speech Disabled, Kentucky offers an important public service called Kentucky Relay. The State of Kentucky guarantees all citizens access to convenient, reliable options and services that enable them to communicate by telephone.

How does relay work?

Dial 711 from any phone in Kentucky or the appropriate toll-free number below to connect to Kentucky Relay. Give the Communication Assistant (CA) the area code and number you want to call. During a relay call, the CA will voice everything typed by the TTY user and type everything said by the telephone user.
Dial 7-1-1 OR
TTY: 1-800-648-6056
Voice: 1-800-648-6057
Speech to Speech: 1-888-244-6111
Spanish: 1-866-490-4403

CapTel ® is ideal for people with some degree of hearing loss. CapTel ® works like any other telephone with one important addition: it displays every word the caller says throughout the entire conversation. Captel ® users can listen to the caller and read the captions on the display window.

How do I apply for specialized equipment?

The Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (KCDHH) TTY Distribution Program offers amplified phones, TTYs, Voice Carry Over (VCO) phones, CapTel phones and other equipment free of charge to citizens who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing in Kentucky. For more information on the distribution program, call 1-800-372-2907 TTY/V.

As a residential customer of a regulated public utility in Kentucky, you are guaranteed the following rights subject to Kentucky Revised Statutes and the provisions of the Kentucky Public Service Commission Administrative Regulations:

You have the right to service, provided you (or a member of your household whose debt was accumulated at your address) are not indebted to the utility.

You have the right to inspect and review the utilityâ€™s rates and tariffed operating procedures during the utilityâ€™s normal office hours.

You have the right to be present at any routine utility inspection of your service conditions.

You must be provided a separate, distinct disconnect notice alerting you to a possible disconnection of your service if payment is not received.

You have the right to dispute the reasons for any announced termination of your service.

You have the right to negotiate a partial payment plan when your service is threatened by disconnection for non-payment.

You have the right to participate in equal, budget payment plans for your natural gas and electric service.

You have the right to maintain your utility service for up to thirty (30) days upon presentation of a medical certificate issued by a health official.

You have the right to prompt (within 24 hours) restoration of your service when the cause for discontinuance of the service has been corrected.

If you have not been disconnected, you have the right to maintain your natural gas and electric service for up to thirty (30) days if you present a Certificate of Need issued by the Kentucky Cabinet for Human Resources between November and the end of March.

If you have been disconnected due to nonpayment, you have the right to have your natural gas or electric service reconnected between the months of November through March provided you:

Present a Certificate of Need issued by the Kentucky Cabinet for Human Resources, and

Pay one third (1/3) of your outstanding bill ($200 maximum), and

Accept referral to the Human Resourcesâ€™ Weatherization Program, and

Agree to a repayment schedule that will cause your bill to become current by October 15.

You have the right to contact the Public Service Commission regarding any dispute that you have been unable to resolve with your utility (Call Toll Free 1-800-772-4636).

Statement of Billing Error Rights

This statement sets out your billing error rights with respect to telephone-billed purchases made using interstate 900 pay-per-call services that are billed to you through Brandenburg Telephone Company. The rights and obligations of you, the customer, and of Brandenburg Telephone Company and the long distance company, who is the billing entity, set out here, are provided under the Federal Telephone Disclosure and Dispute Resolution Act. This is the procedure that you must follow to notify Brandenburg Telephone Company of a billing error and the steps that we or the long distance company must take in response to your notice:

You may provide notice of a billing error to Brandenburg Telephone Company by telephone or in writing. If you write, you should:
(1) Give us your name or the customerâ€™s name, and telephone number to which the charge was billed;
(2) Tell us the date and amount of the error, and the type of error you believe occurred; and
(3) Tell us why you believe it was an error.

You should contact Brandenburg Telephone Company first, since we have an agreement to receive billing error notifications from the customers. You may provide a notice to the long distance company instead, and the long distance company may ask you to contact you to contact us directly, and provide to you our name, mailing address, and business telephone number, even if the long distance company also sends your billing error notice to us. A customer who orally communicates an allegation of a billing error is presumed to have provided sufficient notice to initiate a billing review. You have the right to withhold payment of any disputed amount pending completion of our billing review, and any action to collect any disputed amount will be suspended pending completion of the billing review.

If it is determined that no billing error occurred, your rights and obligations are as follows: We will transmit to you an explanation setting forth the reasons why it has been determined that there was no error. If there was an error â€“ even a partial error or an error different than what you asserted â€“ your account will be adjusted appropriately. If you request, we will provide a written explanation and copies of any documentary evidence of the customer indebtedness. This action will be taken within two billing cycles (two months) after your notice is received. If you send your notice to the long distance company instead of Brandenburg Telephone Company, there may be an additional time to complete the necessary responsive action. The long distance company will notify the provider of the service of the disposition of the billing error investigation and the reasons for that disposition. Brandenburg Telephone Company will notify you of the time when payment is due of that portion of the disputed amount that is determined not to be in error. Payment must be made in the normal course of billing or as otherwise provided, but no less than ten days after the request for payment is made. Once Brandenburg Telephone Company and the long distance company have complied with FTC rule 308.7(d) regarding a claim you make of a billing error, there is no further responsibility under that section if you continue to make substantially the same allegation.

YOU CANNOT BE CHARGED FOR A BILLING REVIEW

The long distance company or Brandenburg Telephone Company may take action to collect the sum outstanding that is determined not to be the result of a billing error if you continue to withhold payment of the disputed amount once the billing review is completed. Failure to pay the amount determined not to have been the result of a billing error may be reported to a credit reporting agency or subject you to a collection action. If you continue to dispute any portion of your billing error claim, the fact that your account is delinquent will be reported only if we also report that the amount that remains is in dispute, the amount, and tell you to whom we have made such a report. If the dispute is subsequently resolved, that fact will be reported to all who received the initial report that the account was delinquent. If either we, as your billing entity, or the long distance company as a billing entity, fails to follow the billing and collection procedures prescribed by 308.7 of the Federal Trade Commission rule implementing the federal Telephone Disclosure and Dispute Resolution Act, we are obligated to forfeit any disputed amount, up to $50 per transaction.